"The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable,-- of a bad one, to make it less valuable."-- Henry David Thoreau

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

Sometimes being right just isn’t worth it.

Eric A. has been running a couple of victory laps on behalf of the anti-warriors, in order to satisfy that dark core within us all that needs to gloat. It is a very bitter victory.

I’m realizing as all of this is finally unfolding that I wasn’t nearly skeptical enough about the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destructions. And I was pretty skeptical. But my reasons for opposing the war had less to do with weapons capability then with a mix of humanitarian, practical, and diplomatic misgivings, well-seasoned with a zesty distrust of the motives of the Bush administration. So the fact that we’ve been there for two months now, and have turned up a whole lotta nothing comes as something of a shock. It speaks to how completely the question of WMD dominated the discussion that even naysayers like me were willing to recognize the possibility that they might turn up.

I’m not begrudging anyone the right to say, “We told you so.” We don’t say it enough. And think liberal disgust at being ridiculed, dismissed, and demonized by the pro-war crowd (I don’t think links to examples are necessary. Just check out any right leaning site, blog, or periodical) has reached a nice roiling boil. But if you are a forward-thinking analytical type you’re probably too wound up in the possible repercussions to enjoy being right.

One thing that has me cautiously hopeful is that the fall-out from this will mean the death of “The Doctrine of Preemption,” especially if it seems as though the United States will go as far as to fabricate evidence in order to justify going to war. But the fact remains that the damage done to our credibility warrants more than just, “Oops! My bad.”